Exult

Not bringing the sleeves allow you to have plenty of kites or room in the kite(/ski) bag. Necessity is the mother of all "inventions" I've heard. Did not try it out, bringing the kites without the sleeves i.e., until recently - I had to, due to limited space when packing for travelling. Are there any disadvantages with this method compared to keeping each kite in its respective sleeve? Before leaving home, this lead to a hunt for velcro straps that comes with the kites when new to keep each kite in a roll. Before I considered them not so important, which have led to that they have diffused around ending up here and there in the kite gear boxes*. The sleeveless transport urged me to mark the spreaders by putting a white tape strip around each kite's spreader where the name of the kite has been written - just in case any spreader would escape from a kite roll. Now this is not so likely, since when disassembling the kite I always put a rubber band around all spreaders. This photo was taken during a very sunny period during a vacation trip. Without the buff I would have been forced to much limit kiting and other outdoors activities. The buff is not any special UV buff to my knowledge and was originally used when(and bought for) skiing. I very rarely wear the buff in "mugger-mode" covering the whole face in the summer, but is instead mostly interested in covering the gap between the hat and shirt. Are the UV-buffs for summer use "only" and would they be much cooler than a winter buff? I have not tried any "pure UV buff" for hot day summer use so I can't tell about any perceived differences. These sunglasses are new to me. They are large enough to allow ordinary glasses to be worn under them. They cover field of view well, leaving very small gaps along the rim. A problem with these sunglasses is that the nose pads that supports the sun glasses on the nose are just a quite sharp edges (or strips at the wrong angle) which are not comfortable after a while. These strips go around the rim of the eyeglass chassis, sealing light and adding distance allowing the corrective (normal) eyeglasses to be worn under them. Adding some kind of nose pads or at least grind the strips closest to the nose somewhat could make them more comfortable, could be DIY project perhaps. *Yes I do have an aversion to getting rid of stuff (an especially high threshold for kite stuff). There is "always" a possibility of repairing, using in repairs, using as reference when ordering or using stuff as raw material for something else (but in general way to little time to do it).

To describe someone who had changed their ways/opinions/activities with age (often to something milder) my father used the expression(/proverb?): "When the devil grows old he turns religious". OK, this may not be the a perfect application of the expression, but here is my first framed quad, on a beach in Sidmouth (UK, Devon). Except for one day the wind here has always been much lower than the forecast making (especially inverted) hovers difficult to practice. I unfortunately didn't bring the lighter set of spars (the 2 wrap ones) during this vacation trip out of fear that my rookieness would break them (they remain at home in their original bag). What is the most common way of breaking quad spars - breaking the spars in the air (due to high wind/hard input) or when doing "unplanned landings" with a powered kite with tensioned lines? So far I've only tried the 15m lines, mostly due to the low wind (and sometimes lack of space), but I find it an OK length of learning on (without having tried the 25m line set yet). I'm sure that previous DLK experience makes it easier to pick up QLK. The make shift thought model that the brake lines (rear lines?) corresponds to pulling the right/left DLK line gets you far. To start with QLK has also given me perspective on DLK. The DLK precision in figures, starting/landing, etc..., that I've taken for granted is more evident for me now when I can compare it to my currently more wobbly QLK piloting.

A few times the kites collided with a muffled sound. Well nothing broke but one time the kites started to spin and left the four lines in a twisted mess. I guess that I could offset the kites by making one line set a metre shorter than the other. In this way the "hit effective cross section" should be reduced and only be limited to kite/line collisions and exclude the kite/kite collisions. Would one notice in any negative way, a metre of difference in lengths between the line sets for a line length of 30m (98ft)? It just struck me that the "reflexes" to give line to make any kite to ground contact milder should ideally apply to kite collisions as well.

Afternoon, 6th of May 2017 Ladugårdsgärdet, forecasted 4-5m/s 2 x Kymera on 30m 50kg lines Ready to roll up into launch position by using a hard wind parking method (the lines/leaders up and around the trailing edge so that the kite can be rolled forward into launch position by pulling the lines). It wasn't always necessary with this type of start, conditions were quite OK today, but was sometimes a bit on the lower side - no tail weights fitted (serves no purpose here anyhow). If you want to apply low wind techniques you need to have both the noses pointing either up or down at the same time. The wind range that I can do do dual DLKs is quite narrow given my current skills. Low wind means that the kites needs to be synchronized as just stated when flying up/down and hard wind well that is just makes the kites move too quickly. Perhaps going to 40m would allow higher wind speeds, since there would be more room to maneuver the kites? Most of the time I let the kites go left right in rather synchronized way. Often had them high up in the window, so my neck got a bit sore after a few hours. When doing normal (single) DLK tricking, I'm closer to ground most of the time which doesn't strain your neck. Even though I kept it simple, mainly striving to keep the kites in the air and avoiding the un-planned landings (which worked for some minutes at a time at best) I was quite satisfied.

Upon arriving to the beach/field the day I was going to try the new handles doing quad line and dual DLK it looked like I just had missed out some high wind action... . So how was this first attempt with two DLKs. The Hydra was on 20m lines and the Kymera on 25m lines (as often before). At this early stage of my "dual dual" training I could not notice any drawback with this unsymmetrical arrangement. Crash avoiding and some rudimentary left/right control are the main issues. The attempts that lasted often were (or bore resemblance to) two lying figure eights. When doing the figure eights both the kites were going left/right at the same time without the lines crossing. Well one more recommendation - don't try to be to clever when (or be careful at least) when attaching the line to a handle. I was lazy and let the handle remain and hang lose, which caused a difficult line tangle. Recommendations from a beginner, based on this event: Get going - you don't need the perfect gear from start and you may already have the required items and can make some simple handles yourself if needed (perhaps a quad handle if available would do?). You don't need two identical kites for the initial training. Possibly you could try with some longer lines if available and if the field is large enough - after all if you are new to this you are likely going to feel like first time dual beginner. Actually this is a good remainder of how it was being a beginner when you see an absolute beginner "landing" your kites again and again.

For the second handle I had run out of long enough pieces of lilac* - they had already been cut to lengths suitable for the fireplaces. I stuck to the zero budget way and went for some short just long enough surplus wooden planks of spruce with nice uniform fibre direction. I heard somewhere a long time ago (as a child in fact), that to make the bow strong of certain ships, the wooden planks were cracked into shape along the fibres (sounds difficult for long planks though). Well since I have no lathe and the spruce wood is low density, but yet the handle should be strong/stiff enough - why not give the method a try? If would find that there would be an advantage with curved handles I should consider all curved pieces of wood from the garden as potential handle material and not just something to be used for heating. Usually when a branch is curved I put the cut in the middle of the curve, so that I get two semi straight logs from it to fit into the pile of logs. *Of course I could go and cut some new branches from the bushes (there is plenty of it), but I'm in a several year process of rejuvenate the bushes and do not want to deviate from this. Not until the flowering period has passed you should do the cutting. The first year you do the central parts of the bushes, later years you work your way more outwards and during the third and fourth year you work at the "surface" of the bush.

Before leaving for a kiting session I invested 20 minutes time to create a bar handle. The zero budget material (pointless going for some fancier before knowing what you want) I chose to use was a pin of lilac - a very hard material. In fact it is the only type of hard enough pins that last when playing with the German Shepard. In the background you can see a very frequent visitor - a Field Labrador (a more original Labrador type, quick/quick turning, jumps over high fences and with a very strong and constant desire to fetch). It may look innocent, but is the worst constantly-in-to-play "garden assistant" I know. I don't want to know what would happen to a flying kite in its vicinity. Learning to fly by using a handle was surprisingly quick (compared to trick learning). OK a few nose dives, but that was really expected. The handle was a bit too short because I couldn't do any snap stalls and no cart wheels (assuming this a a reason). Hopefully both hands will be strong enough to manage longer handles when doing quick movements. Off the kiting field I've started to use the left hand more and sometimes just wiggle my laptop quickly (or tilting my bag) while waiting in a line e.g. to get some more left hand exercise. A boost in kiting confidence was when the one hand fade launch worked. While cart wheels didn't work, fade launches became the remaining choice when the kite was not in a normal start position.

Fri Apr 14 14:06:33 CEST 2017 Neighbor's lawn, possibly 1m/s 4D on 6m 25kg lines Drinking, kiting and colliding with a non-kiter(*) - how does that taste? My summer neighbor was likely a bit bored when guarding the garden fire, so he asked me over for a garden beer. I decided to bring my 4D, but I didn't have very much hope of being able to use it because of lack of open space and (presumed) undisturbed/non-turbulent wind. The wind direction was wrong for the normal nearby field for the whole extended Easter weekend, so I felt a bit desperate. The usual question/statement came: "But there is no wind". So I explained that it was the quality of the wind and lack space that was the concern and assembled the kite. Well it was crowded and limited to fly between the trees and around the supposedly roe-deer-attacked-once-a-tree-plant on the mini kite field (metres wide). Yes, the wind direction was so that the smoke from the fire went there as well. I'm not going to bore you with details of this much limited flying, but instead point out what could be the most valuable thing learnt (or at least something I'm going to investigate further) - the quality of the wind was kind of OK, despite the fact the there were a few low trees (still without leaves) close and upstream. For low wind speeds is the requirement of the field size much less strict? And the kite-attack I promised above - how did that happen? Well you see the answer though you may not realize it. This time I had the luxury of someone holding the camera so that I could get a few pictures of the kite in flight. As a "thank you" for the close up photo I (accidentally) hit him with the kite. I can't have been such a bad pilot at this occasion anyhow, since the 4D didn't end up in a tree - but that was a poor comfort for him. My cardigan strongly smelled of smoke for days afterwards. * Any higher wind speed or heavier/larger kite can really cause damage - don't do it!